Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  And so he was known as Little Star.

  There were a dozen men in the room when Mark entered, scientists, doctors and statesmen, all crowded about the conventional play-pen in which Little Star was sitting.

  Mark moved to a point where he could see the boy. He was conscious of the quickened beat of his heart, and of another sensation or feeling which he couldn’t define.

  Little Star was holding a red rubber ball in his hand when Mark saw him for the first time. He was about the size of a two-year-old earth child, with thin arms and legs and an alert, curious face. His coloring was a beautiful shade of brown, almost like that of milk chocolate. There was no obvious dissimilarity between him and hundreds of earth babies Mark had examined, except that his fingers were so slim as to be almost non-functional. He seemed neither happy nor sad at the moment as he stared gravely at the red rubber ball in his tiny hand.

  Mark came a bit closer and Little Star looked directly at him, and said, “Hello.”

  “Hello,” Mark said awkwardly. His throat felt very dry. He sat down cross-legged on the floor beside the play-pen. No one had told him that the boy spoke English, or any language for that matter, and the fact that he did had jarred him.

  “I learned from listening,” Little Star said. He put the ball down and came nearer the bars, studying Mark with his lively brown eyes.

  “I see,” Mark said. “That was clever. My name is Mark. I’m a doctor.”

  “Is there something the matter with me?”

  “No, you look very healthy,” Mark said. The boy’s tone had been grave, but Mark had a curious feeling that he was being teased. “But I will take care of you if you need any kind of help,” he said. “And I hope we will be friends.”

  “That is a possibility,” Little Star said.

  The answer might have been explicit or impudent, Mark couldn’t tell. “Is there anything I can do for you now?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. But don’t be afraid, Mark,” Little Star said.

  Mark looked sharply at the child. He opened his mouth to deny that he was afraid, but closed it without saying anything. How had the boy known of his fear? That had been his feeling when he entered the room, he realized. But why? Of what was he afraid?

  He was almost tempted to ask Little Star these questions. But a greater fear kept him silent. And the greater fear was that Little Star would tell him why he was afraid . . .

  THAT was his first meeting with the boy. In the following year Mark saw him every day and they became friends. Mark learned much about the boy, but-he knew that Little Star was learning much more about him. This same thing happened to everyone who came in contact with the child. It didn’t bother Mark a bit, since he was a humble man who revered knowledge and felt indebted to those who could lead him to an understanding of all that he didn’t know. But certain eminent persons, were occasionally nettled by the boy’s habit of turning their questions about so that they exposed areas of ignorance rather than of knowledge. Little Star was never cute or pretentious in these instances; but it was disconcerting, in any case, for a Nobel Prize winner to be caught short in his specialty by a little child twenty-four inches high.

  However, even those whose vanity was offended had to concede that the little boy possessed a marvelous intellect. They put test problems to him and he solved them with only a pencil and paper, destroying hitherto insurmountable obstacles as fast as his thin little fingers could write down the equations. All of this happened during the ten-day-wonder stage when Little Star was more notorious than famous. He was a Ripley item, a freak, something so out of the ordinary that he bewildered rather than impressed the world. This stage gave way to another, of course, when his practical values were realized.

  There was no point, the Sirius Authority concluded, to use the boy’s mental attainments to answer riddles or to solve test problems. Therefore, the delegates were invited to submit those problems most worrisome to their respective nations, and these in turn would be handed over to

  Little Star for examination and, it was hoped, solution.

  This was immediately done. China wanted something done about soil conservation, India and Egypt were for weather control to bring water to their millions of parched acres, Russia wanted the horizons of atomic research extended, Great Britain hoped for a method to decrease the size of factories. So it went. Each nation had a pressing need for new techniques and new ideas that would help its people live more abundantly and happily. In fact, every industry from steel to shipping had a little job they wished Little Star would get to work on. And the same was true of medicine, architecture, printing, law, farming—the list seemed endless.

  A BATTLE started instantly on priorities. The Sirius Authority was in round-the-clock session trying to muster a majority of votes behind any given proposal. But this seemed hopeless. For the distressing fact appeared that one nation’s gain could be another’s loss. Horse-trading on an international scale went on for weeks before a coalition got behind one proposal—techniques for weather control—and pushed it through the council.

  Then it was given to Little Star, and in two days he gave scientists an overall program to solve the problem. He created a new science and a new nomenclature in doing this, and it took him twice as long to explain them as it had taken him to complete his theories. Even then the scientists were still in the dark; but they took his word on faith and pushed his ideas into practice.

  And they worked, of course.

  This first success generated an enormous spirit of optimism throughout the world. Nothing seemed impossible now, nothing too far-fetched. All of mankind’s dreams could be realized at last, not five-hundred years in the future, but now, in the blessed now.

  There was a cry for speed!

  The conquest of disease, poverty, war—this was on the horizon but there was a desperate fear that the victory might not come in time. People wanted their dreams realized now, tomorrow at the latest, for the thought of dying before the millennium arrived was unbearable.

  And Little Star did his best.

  The Sirius Authority provided him with a laboratory, assistants and the finest of equipment, and asked only in return that he solve the world’s problems right away.

  LITTLE STAR worked long hours at his desk, scribbling out equations that were forged into lances to thrust at the heart of man’s deadliest enemies.

  Mark worried about his health, but the boy showed no ill effects from his heavy burdens. One night, after an unusually strenuous day, Mark stopped in and found him at a window, looking-down at the boats steaming slowly up the East river. It was a beautiful scene that stretched out before them; the river, the stars, the graceful steel tracery of the bridges, were composed in graceful, lovely patterns.

  “Would you like to go for a boat ride sometime?” Mark asked him.

  “I’m quite happy,” Little Star said, smiling.

  “That isn’t what I asked.”

  “Yes it was,” Little Star said.

  “And you’re sure you’re happy?”

  “Yes, so long as I am useful,” Little Star said.

  Mark was to remember this later.

  But for all his work, Little Star had another side to him. He had a lively sense of humor and loved to play tricks on his nurses. There was nothing malicious in his pranks, but he nearly drove them to distraction by predicting with staggering accuracy what would happen in their love affairs. One young woman in particular, a slim and pretty blonde named Miss Nelson, usually began blushing if he so much as asked her (in his innocent manner) if she’d had a good time the night before. Then, if she let her guard down, he would tell her exactly what would happen on her next date with whatever young man she was interested in at the moment.

  “You will have a little quarrel over a box of popcorn, and he will kiss you ten minutes later,” he might say, nodding his head solemnly.

  And that, inevitably, would happen.

  Once Mark asked him how he did this, and Little Star smiled and said, “I
just guess, that’s all.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “I examine the possibilities,” Little Star said. “My advantage is that I can examine a great number of them in a very short time.”

  “That doesn’t tell me much.”

  “Well, think a moment. Something must happen, isn’t that evident? And there are only a certain number of things which can happen. If you look at everything that could happen, you’ll see that one of them has what you might call a probability edge.”

  “BUT millions of things might happen,” Mark said.

  “Or billions,” Little Star said. “The trick is to examine them all, and not take too much time about it.” Then he looked up at Mark smiling, and said, “No, I don’t think you’re a monkey.”

  “How did you know I was thinking that?”

  “I’ve told you,” Little Star said. “It was a probability, and the best one. You were thinking of us, and trying to decide on an analogy to represent our relationship. You thought of me as an intelligent little earth boy, and yourself as a monkey. Now, if we were both in a cage, and could communicate, the boy could astound the monkey with his predictions. Supposing the door of the cage were ajar. The boy might say to the monkey, ‘Today you will eat a banana from that tree outside.’ This would baffle the monkey. But all the boy saw was the probability that the monkey would discover the open door, go outside and eat a banana.”

  “Well, that’s what I was thinking,” Mark said, grinning slightly. “But I’ve thought the same thing about the scientists you work with.”

  “Yes, I see more possibilities than they do,” Little Star said simply.

  “Okay, I see a particular one staring me right in the face now, and you’d better see it too,” Mark said, standing.

  Little Star grinned. “Unless I get to bed this minute . . .”

  “That’s it.”

  “All right,” the child said, climbing onto his bed. “But would it interest you to know that the girl you marry will want—”

  “No, it wouldn’t!” Mark said hastily. “Get to sleep now.”

  He walked away from the boy’s room, shaking his head. It wasn’t until a few moments later that he began to laugh.

  IN the months that followed Mark devoted himself completely to the job of preparing a clinical report on the boy’s physical reactions. Because of this involvement which shut him off from his normal interests, he was unprepared for an incident which occurred during one of the infrequent occasions when he was dining out with friends.

  The conversation had turned to Little Star and one of the group—a man Mark had long respected—said bitterly, “It would have been better if we’d tossed him into the ocean when he came here.”

  “What in hell do you mean by that?” Mark said angrily.

  “Well, he’s dangerous, that’s what I mean.”

  “I can’t believe you’re serious.”

  The man hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, you’ve been exposed to him for quite a while, of course.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “You don’t see the situation clearly, perhaps. But I’d advise you to look around you and read the newspapers. That might give you a fresh perspective.”

  Mark tried to forget the incident, but it clung to him like some harbinger of disaster. And he was appalled to discover—in papers, magazines and TV—a swiftly burgeoning reaction against Little Star.

  There were no explicit charges. However, it was apparent that two forces were at work: the first were those interests who had been hurt by the child’s teachings, and the second was the vast amorphous masses of everyday people who feared him because he was different from them, because he was strange and unknown.

  THE FIRST group, the interests, were almost pathetic, Mark thought. They had asked, no, begged for help, and now they complained because they had got it. Their reactions was highly human and understandable. The labor unions wanted shorter hours—but they wondered fearfully if these technical improvements might put them out of work altogether. The steel companies wanted faster means to produce their product—but they didn’t want a product so cheap and functional that it would sell for next to nothing and last forever. Even the doctors were apprehensive. Certainly they desired the conquest of disease—they had fought to this end for centuries—but if it were wiped out overnight, wouldn’t it wipe them out too? And the hospitals, nurses, laboratories—what would happen to them?

  And nations found the future frightening too. It was one thing to be given something for themselves, but national policy demanded that they look skeptically at similar boons to other nations.

  India was growing more wheat now than ever before in her history, and the time would come when she would move her surpluses onto the world market—and what a mess that would be, said the traditional sellers of wheat. And Russia was performing miracles in the development of atomic equipment—but was it all for peaceful ends? Great Britain, for one, flatly doubted it. German shipping was spreading all over the world, and no one liked that but the Germans.

  And the people, sensing the fear of their leaders, became fearful too.

  The London Times took a cautious view of these recent discoveries of Little Star. “The happiest progress is that characterized by stateliness and dignity,” it intoned. “But can this pell-mell flight on which we are presently borne take us anywhere?”

  No one seemed to know!

  And meanwhile, unaware of the fuss, or perhaps indifferent to it, Little Star continued to push back the frontiers of knowledge. He attacked the problems of old age, he provided answers to the riddles inherent in telepathy and intuition, he designed Rocket.

  Finally, the Sirius Authority was called into special session to decide how they might control this flood of blessings. The debate raged for days. Russia had a charming suggestion, which was that Little Star be turned over to their custody.

  “We will distribute his inventions according to the policies of the People’s Republic,” their delegate announced. “Who can question the fairness of this?”

  Quite a few delegates did, and made themselves clear at the tops of their lungs.

  Finally a decision was reached. It was attacked violently by many scientists and teachers, but the Sirius Authority stuck to its guns.

  The decision stood.

  And the decision was that Little Star would no longer be allowed to continue his experiments. His laboratory would be dismantled, his assistants discharged, and security measures established to prevent his disseminating any information to anyone.

  It wasn’t solitary confinement they advocated, but it wasn’t far from it.

  And the world breathed easier!

  Mark saw the boy on only two occasions after the verdict was issued. The first time was two weeks after he had been moved out of his laboratory and transferred to a small, comfortable room which was guarded twenty-four hours a day.

  Mark found the boy at the window looking down at the river. They stood together a moment and then the child looked up at him and smiled faintly. “No, I’m not happy,” he said.

  “I know that,” Mark said.

  Little Star sighed gently. “Why didn’t they use the things I gave them?” he said.

  Mark was silent.

  “Perhaps it isn’t time yet,” Little Star said.

  “I hope that’s it,” Mark said.

  And then he left the boy standing in the dark room staring down on the river.

  A MONTH after this he saw a headline which attracted his attention. It read, SIRIUS AUTHORITY RE-CONVENES! He bought the paper and turned into a restaurant for dinner. But the story under the headline destroyed his appetite. It seemed that the world was still far from normal. Locking up Little Star hadn’t turned the trick. But the conclusions drawn from this brought a cold lump of fear to Mark’s stomach. And he knew then that this was what he had feared the first time he had entered the boy’s presence. Now there was a powerful movement underway to have Little Star done away with. I
t wasn’t his ideas, the leaders of this movement said, it was his person—alien, evil and monstrous—that must be destroyed. This was a lunatic group, true enough, led by hysterics, idiots, and plain damn fools. But the sentiment might grow. Here was an ideal target to shoot at, to blame for all ills, international or personal. Here was a perfect victim.

  Mark pushed his food away and walked out of the restaurant. The night was dark and starless, and the feel of winter was there.

  A nurse said hello to him, and stopped a second to talk.

  “Get that one,” she said, nodding to a young Puerto Rican girl who sat alone on a bench, her flat, unintelligent face softened by despair. The girl was about twenty, with warm, melting brown eyes. She was neatly but poorly dressed, and she raised her head hopefully each time the double doors leading to the wards swung open or shut.

  “What’s she waiting for?” Mark asked, his eyes on the girl.

  “She brought her son in about two weeks ago,” the nurse said. “He’d been hit by a car, fractured his leg. Well, there were complications and he died. But we can’t sell her that. She’s a little out of her head, if you ask me. She keeps coming back for her kid. She brought him here, and she’s going to wait until he shows up.”

  “I see,” Mark said slowly, “And her son’s been buried?”

  “Sure. Excuse me, I’ve got to rush. See you.”

  Mark hesitated a moment or so, thinking of nothing at all. Or rather he wasn’t conscious of thinking. Then he went to the girl and touched her shoulder. “Please come with me,” he said.

  “You ’ave my boy?” she said, looking up at him with animal hope in her eyes.